[Vm-dev] VM/Image magic numbers (Re: [Pharo-users] Pharo 6 snap install)

[Ben Coman]

The "magic decode for image files" seems related and possibly *very* useful....
http://forum.world.st/magic-decode-for-image-files-td4941712.html#a4941837

Now traditionally the VM has been backward compatible with old Images,
but Pharo doesn't necessarily adhere to that and policy IIUC is
release specific VM/Image pairs.
So does Pharo require extra magic numbers to co-ordinate this?
And how would this interact with OpenSmalltalk policy on these magic numbers?

cheers -ben

On Sat, Apr 15, 2017 at 4:20 AM, Stephane Ducasse
<stepharo.self at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is what we always have when we release and we freeze it.
> The vm 60 will be compatible with latest pharo 60 image.
>
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 14, 2017 at 12:09 PM, Luke Gorrie <luke at snabb.co> wrote:
>>
>> On 14 April 2017 at 08:53, Stephane Ducasse <stepharo.self at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> We always try to have a major release around mid/end of april
>>
>>
>> Once the dust settles, I think it would be wonderful to have this invariant:
>>
>> - The latest Pharo VM source release is compatible with the latest Pharo image.
>>
>> This would make it easy for me to help nix users. My job will be to package the latest source release of the VM, period, and I will know that users can use this to run the latest image. I don't have much scope to screw things up and make people sad e.g. by shipping a bad commit from the master branch.
>>
>> (Of course it makes life harder for you upstream Pharo maintainers. Now updating the VM source release is a blocker for releasing a new image. Could be that this is too constraining in practice, I dunno. I'm just a guy who wants to setup a stable Pharo that I can use to build an application :-))
>>
>>
>